Page 129 of Taming the Alpha's Daughter

My mind races with thoughts of Sage.

With my last bit of remaining strength, I reach for Donnie, calling out to him in my mind and urging him to shift, so he can get us out of this mess we are in before it’s too late. But between the blood loss and the pressure, everything begins to blur around me. My lungs begin to scream for air, but there is none left; all that is left is a stream of bubbles floating up towards the surface from where I lay suspended in the dark abyss beneath the river.

The darkness begins to take over as my vision fades and I feel myself slipping away into oblivion. Finally succumbing to the depths, I take one last breath before closing my eyes for what may be their last time. My body spasms, fighting for air it's not going to receive, all while Sage screams in my head to stay with her.

“I'm sorry my love,” I manage before I take a breath, only it’s water instead, yet weightlessness falls over me. I blink in the darkness as an overwhelming calmness washes over me as the darkness grows darker and that weightless feeling turns numbing, then… nothing.

ChapterNinety-Four

Katya

The chill of the night seeps into my bones as we search for Dominic through the paths of the city cemetery. My mates walking alongside me, their presence a source of both comfort and protectiveness. So much has happened recently that our bond has been placed on the back burner. We are always so busy catering to everyone else, I have almost forgotten what it was like when it was just us in our little bubble. So, even if the reasoning behind us being all in one place is horrid, I don't take it for granted.

The air is thick with unease, and somewhere deep in my heart, I can sense Dominic's torment like a storm on the horizon. The way he stormed out of the penthouse apartment, I could tell he was furious, his aura magnificent like all Octavian's, yet I could sense the heartbreak radiating from him loud and clear.

“There,” Ezra points up the back. I had forced myself into Dominic's head earlier, demanding where he was, and finally, we found him.

We find him in the dark, a silhouette against the backdrop of disturbed earth and open graves. He's digging furiously, muttering to himself in disbelief and anger. His once pristine suit is covered in mud, his clawed fingers and hands relentless against the soil.

Ezra jumps into the next grave, where Dominic is maniacally excavating Dior Shivani's resting place.

“Dominic, enough,” he says firmly, but it's like he's speaking to the wind. Ezra tries to grab his shoulders but is shoved back, and I feel Maddox press forward, his temper just as quick as a click of his fingers these days. I shake my head, reminding Maddox Dominic is a friend, not an enemy, and Ezra's eyes flicker.

“I killed them, I killed them, I saw them die, but why aren't they here!” Dominic's voice is a snarl, his eyes wild with desperation as he resumes digging.

Ezra looks back at Mateo, and me, confusion and concern mirrored in our eyes. The sight of Lorelei's empty grave beside Dior's slices through me, proof of the horrors Dominic thought he had buried.

The sound of wood splintering under Dominic's relentless efforts breaks the tension. Ezra growls, Maddox close to the surface, and he rips the casket lid off to reveal nothing but bones.

“He wasn't a reaper wolf,” I gasp, the implications dizzying.

“No, he was a reaper wolf,” Dominic insists, his voice tinged with hysteria.

“Reaper wolves can't die, Dominic. We've established this,” I counter, but the certainty in my voice is a brittle thing.

Dominic looks between the graves, his mind struggling to reconcile the impossible. He moves to Lorelei's empty resting place, and it's there that his façade crumbles. “I promised I'd make them pay. I failed her; I failed Kyan,” he sobs, the sound tearing at my heart.

“You killed Dior. You killed him; he was the main one.” Ezra tries to comfort him, his voice a steady anchor in the tumult of Dominic's unhinged emotions.

“The main one that hurt her, yes, but not the one pulling the strings… that bitch is the one that kidnapped her. Let him do that to her,” Dominic states.

I exchange a haunted look with Mateo and Ezra. Dominic's past, his wife's suffering, it's a dark chapter we’ve never fully discussed Mostly because we never wanted to pry too much, knowing it’s a sore spot for Dominic. His confession paints a vivid picture of vengeance and wrath, a cycle of violence we're all too familiar with after meeting Sage, so I can only imagine the horrors his wife endured.

“I carved him up like he did her… I made sure he paid,” Dominic's words are almost lost under the weight of his anguish.

“Maybe Dior was just an ordinary werewolf,” I suggest, my voice barely a whisper as I contemplate the skeletal remains of him. But the rest of these graves are empty, torn apart coffins, just like Kyan described; they'd clawed themselves out of the grave.

“Come on, let's get you home and cleaned up while we work this out.”

“No, he was definitely a reaper wolf, he healed like her, he wasn't human, also not just a typical wolf, he was a savage, no remorse, nothing, an empty unfeeling vessel like the rest of them,” Dominic urges.

“But if he is a reaper wolf, how would you have managed to kill him but not the others?” I question, and he glares at Lorelei's empty grave.

“I don't know, but I made her watch; I made her beg for his life before I made her watch me end him. She watched every cut, and slice, watched me remove his limbs, and I made sure she heard and witnessed every scream as I removed each limb and then carved the same thing into his chest as he did her with the dagger.…” Dominic's brows furrow.

“Carved what into his chest?” Mateo asks, but Dominic is glancing between both graves, a confused look on his face.

“The dagger,” he murmurs softly.

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